1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to: an alignment jig used when aligning and bonding a nozzle plate of a plurality of liquid-jet heads, which eject liquid, with a fixing member; a manufacturing method thereof; and a method of manufacturing a liquid-jet head unit using the alignment jig.
2. Related Art
An ink-jet recording apparatus such as an ink-jet printer and a plotter is provided with an ink-jet recording head unit (hereinafter, referred to as a head unit) which includes an ink-jet recording head capable of ejecting, as ink droplets, ink held in a liquid holding unit such as an ink cartridge and an ink tank.
The head unit includes: an ink-jet recording head having a nozzle line composed of nozzle orifices provided in parallel lines; and a cover head protecting a plane side which ejects ink droplets of the ink-jet recording head. The cover head has: a window frame portion with an opening window portion which exposes the nozzle orifices and which is provided on the plane side that ejects ink droplets of the ink-jet recording head; and a side wall portion which is formed by being bent from the window frame portion toward the side face of the ink-jet recording head. The cover head is fixed by bonding the side wall part to the side face of the ink-jet recording head (please refer to FIG. 3 on p. 4 of JP-A-2002-160376, for example).
Furthermore, when bonding a fixing member such as the cover head and a fixing board to the plurality of the ink-jet recording heads, the bonding is performed by aligning a plate-shaped mask having a reference mark with an alignment mark provided on a nozzle plate. However, since units such as a base jig holding the nozzle plate exist between the mask and the nozzle plate, there is a problem that a distance between the reference mark and the alignment mark increases, and that the precision of alignment decreases.
In addition, if the distance between the mask and the fixing board is shortened by thinning the base jig which holds the fixing member, a stiffness of the base jig decreases. Thus, when fixing the fixing member to the ink-jet recording head, there is a problem that a deformation and a fracture of the base jig are invited, and that it is not possible to perform alignment with high precision.
Note that the problem of this kind naturally exists not only in a method of manufacturing the ink-jet recording head, but also in a method of manufacturing other liquid-jet heads.
FIG. 3 on p. 4 of JP-A-2002-160376 is an example of related art.